I’m back with another app that I love to use. This one is mPlaces and can actually be used in conjunction with PunchCard because you can link your mPoints account to both of the apps to help you accumulate points faster.

This app works a lot like Shopkick – When you walk into places you open up the app – the app checks you in – and you earn mPoints. I’ve also received the 5 mPoint daily tap in – which basically means you open the app and click on the ‘daily tap in.’ and once you do you get 5 mPoints. Recently I discovered these “gift boxes” which seem to just randomly pop up on the mPlaces map from time to time. If you find one tap on it to open it – you can win mPoints or gift cards (this can be found on the ‘map’ tab at the bottom of the app).

You can also earn mPoints other ways by clicking on the “earn” tab at the bottom of the app (as you can see in the pictures above). You can then cash in the mPoints you earn for gift cards (the picture on the right). These are the same kinds of giftcards you can earn from punch card and if you link your accounts keep in mind that both apps will put points into your mPoints account. So if you redeem your mPoints in one of the apps – they will also be considered redeemed from the other app!

By now I’m sure that most of you have noticed that when I do target deals I always post if there is a Cartwheel available for the deal. If you don’t know what Cartwheel is this is the post for you – because if you shop at Target you need to be using Cartwheel!

Basically Cartwheel is an app – only for Target – that gives you a % off specific items that are listed within the app.

You can add offers to your account and at checkout you will pull up a barcode – specific to you and what you loaded to your account – that you will have the cashier scan.

As you can see from the picutre above you can access your barcode by selecting that tab. You can also see the offers you have in your cartwheel by selecting “My Cartwheel” or browse offers by selecting “Offers”. If you want to see if a specific item has a cartwheel available but you don’t want to go looking for that item you can select “Scan Barcode” and simply scan the product – if there is a cartwheel it will pop up and you can add it to your account.

When you are browsing the offers the screen will look like this. If you find an offer and want to know the details you can selecting it by touching it. It will then tell you the details – like when the offer expires – and you can click on the “add” button to add it to your cartwheel account.

There are some rules for cartwheel users – just like coupons. You can use a MAX of 4 items per individual cartwheel per transaction and you can only use Cartwheel for 4 transaction per day.

I know this sounds complicated – but it’s really not. This means if I want to use the 5% off Dial cartwheel pictured above – but I want to buy 6 of them and still get 5% off of each I would need to divide it into 2 separate transactions. Otherwise if you scan all 6 in one transaction the 5% will only come off of 4 of them. The Dial cartwheel counts as 1 individual cartwheel. So I can use the dial cartwheel up to 4 times per transaction.

If I wanted to divide my trip into 5 transactions (purchasing 5 different groups of items) and use a cartwheel each time I couldn’t – I could only have the cashier scan the barcode 4 times and have it work – the 5th time it’s scanned it will no longer work for the day.

When your planning out your coupon trips just be mindful of the allotted amount of times you can use it. Otherwise your end total will be more than you anticipated.

Now why I love using Cartwheel – because it allows you to really Stack your savings. You can use 1 Cartwheel offer, 1 Manufacturers coupon, and 1 Target coupon per item! This means you get 3 chances at saving money per item! That’s not even including any of the other ‘after purchase’ rebate apps (listed at bottom of post).

Now there is this section of cartwheel called “badges” (you can see where it is located in the first picture of this app above). What badges do is open up spots for you to add cartwheels. I’ve been using Cartwheel for so long I forgot how many spots you start out with – but the more spots you have the better. I say this because you can only use cartwheel 4 times per day (so 4 transactions a day). You may have to divide up your orders if you’re going ‘extreme’ in order to use all the cartwheels you want.

For instance lets say you only start with 4 empty spots to add cartwheels to. but you have 5 cartwheels on 5 different products you want to use. At this point you have 2 options – forfeit one of the cartwheels and just do not use it. Or – you can use 4 of the offers in one transaction – and then clear your cartwheel and add the remaining 5th offer to your app and use it a second time. This only causes issues if your going super extreme and plan on having more than 4 transactions- all of which involve using Cartwheel.

So back to why badges are important – each time you earn a badge you unlock another empty spot in your cartwheel. As you can see I have unlocked 12/25 spots (upper right) for cartwheels. This means at any given transaction I can use up to 12 different cartwheels on 12 different products.

When you open the app you can see how many “kicks” you can receive for either walking into the store and/or scanning products once your in the store. You can get Kicks for both.

As you can see on the home screen above you can earn 135 kicks for scanning products at CVS. Whereas at Costco you can earn 35 kicks just for walking into the store and another 125 for scanning products. JC Penney is very similar but they offer you more kicks (75) just to walk in. Each store has a different amount of kicks they offer per day – and the stores and amount of kicks can change each day. There are TONS of stores you can earn kicks at just for walking into.

So how this app works is once you walk into a store you will open the app. I always just kind of stand at the entrance by the doors when I do this. The app will use the location of your phone to see what store your at. You will hear a chime-like sound once it has located you and a blue circle saying “Hi (whoever you are)” will appear and show you the number of kicks you just received.

Then if you want you can scan products for kicks. I don’t usually go hunting for the products – I will do a once-over of the list and just scan products I know I will already be by when I shop (if I even remember to do this).

I will say that if i’m only a few kicks away from a reward – I will almost always hunt a product down to scan because it’s usually really easy find them and I want to hit my reward.

Now for the fun part – the rewards! I usually do not sit on my kicks for too long before cashing them in – basically once I hit a reward minimum I will cash them in. It’s almost always for a Target Gift Card (helps me a lot when I coupon there).

So 500 kicks gets you a $2.00 Target gift card. I know it’s nothing to write home about – but think about it for a second. All you do is walk into stores, get kicks for being at the store you were already going to be at, then cash in those kicks for gift cards. You literally get paid for going places you were already planning on going to! It’s great!

Once you cash in your reward you will go to the “Rewards” tab and click on “my rewards” and you will see your gift card sitting there. You simply click on it and have the cashier scan the bar code to use it.

Plus it’s a pretty fast turn around. I have walked into Target before – redeemed my kicks for a gift card at Target once my “walk-ins” registered – went about my shopping – and used that same reward when I checked out.

Here is another great app for you to start using – it is called Mobisave. You can sign up for it here

This is a great rebate app – and personally I think it has some of the higher value rebates over the other apps. The main difference with this app is that you HAVE to (and I mean absolutely HAVE to) load/save your offers before you actually purchase them. I learned this the hard way!

So when your first log into the app you will click on the “All Offers” area or you can select the ‘type’ of offers (i.e. food, baby, household etc.) Once you do that it will take you to a screen like the one above.

Then you simply scroll through and hit the (+) button next to the offer to ‘load/save’ the offer. That’s it. I like that you don’t have to watch a video or answer questions before unlocking the offer – you simply add it and go about your day.

Then you go and purchase the item (make sure you add the item before the time stamp on your receipt – this app is all about encouraging you to purchase the product before you actually do).

Once you have you’re receipt you upload the receipt and the money will then be deposited into your paypal account.

No minimum amount before you can cash out – you simply get the money back once the receipt has been processed (usually only a couple hours).

It is great when once of these offers overlaps with another app or a coupon – when that does happen it usually ends in a moneymaker deal!

Plus this app will work with ANY store that gives you an itemized receipt!

This is quickly becoming one of my favorite apps that pay you – although I had to wait on a list before I was actually accepted to the program – It was only a day. So if you really want to cash in and stack all of these apps be sure to sign up as soon as you can just in case they still have a ‘wait time’.

So I have an awsome new app that I literally use every time I buy anything – this is Receipt Pal.

This app works a lot like Receipt Hog – with the BIG difference being that you can submit any receipt to this app (short of doctor’s bills) plus you can also submit your digital recipes/online orders. This means my Julep subscriptions get’s submitted to this app, my gas receipts, shopping receipts, and even restaurants receipts.

How this app works is you earn “cards” – each card contains 4 receipt’s. Once you fill up a ‘card’ you earn 100 points.

Your point total will be in the top right hand corner (as you can see mine is currently 3,650 points). All you do is simply click on one of the camera icons in one of the boxes on the card and snap a picture of the receipt. The only thing is you have to capture the entire receipt in the picture because there isn’t a multiple picture option. I have submitted receipts before that I had to set on the ground, stand up, and hold the phone at shoulder level to get the entire receipt in frame – I’ve never had any issues with this type of picture not being accepted.

You only get so many ‘cards’ to fill up per week (I think it’s 5) and then you can enter the ‘sweepstakes’ for each receipt submission past that. I do a lot of couponing and often times end up with a lot of receipts – so I always fill up my cards each week. This prompted me to start my husband on this app.

If you look right next to the total point value accumulated you will see Rewards. This is where you will redeem your points for gift cards (actually e-gift cards). Obviously the longer you save your points the more bang for your buck you will receive – also it seems to be cheaper to save for an amazon gift card over any other gift card with the same value (if you just click on the regular gift cards you will see that you can choose from many stores like Best Buy, Walmart, Bass Pro Shop and more). I’ve never actually redeemed from the regular gift card because I prefer to get amazon ones.

So I love this app because it doesn’t require you to purchase a specific item to obtain a rebate and it is isn’t limited to grocery stores. It literally will add up points on the things you’re already buying and you can then cash those points in for gift cards. Plus if you use Receipt Hog it’s almost like a double dip with each receipt!

Shrink is another rebate app – but it’s slightly different from the rest. So obviously the first thing you would need to do is Sign Up Here – and when you do be sure to use referral code “KBSKNE” to give you extra rebates and enough points for $1.00 cash right away!

So Shrink has Dual features. It gives you rebates on products you purchase and it also gives you points. These points can then be cashed in for cash, higher rebates, and even free products all together. The referral code above will give you 1,000 points – which is equal to $1.00 cash – just for using it when you sign up! So be sure to use it and snag an extra dollar! It will also give you extra rebates.

Shrink divides up their ‘offers’ based on the brand and also has one ‘shrink exclusive’ category (which is where the ‘any brand’ offers are located). In order to have any sort of access to the brand you have to unlock it. Which is BEYOND easy – you simply click on the brand – and then click on unlock – and voila – it’s unlocked. Nothing super complicated there. I would recommend going through and unlocking every brand once you sign up. Anytime a new brand pops up in the app I ALWAYS UNLOCK IT!

Once you are inside the brand you will find the rebates back on products as well as how to earn points for cash for the products.

As you can see below are the ‘brands’ of Simply Organic and Beech-Nut. There are TONS more ‘brands’ on there as well.

How I use the app is I stay within each ‘brand’ section (although you can simply click on “rebates” at the bottom of the app to see all rebates from every brand you have unlocked). But for the sake of explaining how to use this app – I would recommend sticking within the ‘brand’.

The rebates work just like any other rebate – you purchase the product, scan the bar code, snap a picture of the receipt, and submit it! That’s it!

The points are the complicated part of the app (in my opinion). How it works is that you get points and those points stay within each ‘brand’ or ‘category’ they were earned in and you can then redeem those points for cash, higher rebates and even free products. To see your points – simply go to the ‘brand’ and go to the rewards section (it will be the top right of screen like on the picture below) you can redeem your rewards there.

To cash out you can link your paypal or venmo account and cash out once you hit $20 and the cash will be moved from the app to your account.

I like using this app a ton because the ‘shrink exclusive‘ area can allow you to really maximize savings. I would recommend going down the line and unlocking every brand once you sign up – that way you’re not doing it in the store. Makes it easier.

Just think of all the savings you could have if an offer overlaps between all of these apps!

Hello and Welcome to my blog! I am a Child of God, Wife, Mama to my baby girl and fur-babies. I LOVE to coupon, try new recipes, and attempt DIY projects. Thank you for stopping by and I hope you explore for a while!

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